Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are management information systems (MISs) that integrate and automate many of the business practices and functions associated with the operations or production and distribution aspects of a company engaged in manufacturing and/or selling products or services. ERP systems typically handle manufacturing, logistics, distribution, inventory, shipping, invoicing, and accounting functions for a company, and ERP software can aid in the control of many business activities, like sales, delivery, billing, production, inventory management, quality management, and human resources management. ERP systems are often called “back office” systems, indicating that customers and the general public are not directly involved in the operation of the ERP system.
As an example, an ERP system may, along with other functionality, track the availability, movement and sale of goods for a manufacturer or retailer. The ERP system may store information relating to the location of goods within one or more facilities, within departments, such as receiving, shipping and warehousing, within a facility, and within individual storage locations within each facility. In addition to quantity information, the ERP system may track the availability of the goods within the facilities for sale to customers. For example, the ERP system may reserve a quantity of the goods at a particular facility when a sales order is received from a customer, and may reserve a quantity of goods in a particular storage location within the facility to be used to fill the sales order when the ERP system schedules the order fulfillment activities, such as item-picking, order consolidation and shipping, to be performed at the facility the following day. As the order fulfillment activities are performed, the ERP system may reduce the on-hand inventory and reserved inventory of the storage locations and the facility to reflect the completion of the sales transaction. In the case of a retail facility, the ERP system may adjust the inventory available on the display floor and at the retail facility when the customer makes a purchase at a point-of-sale terminal.
In some implementations, ERP systems are used by retailers to support the activities of the sales associates in their stores to assist customers in finding and purchasing products offered by the retailer. The customers are dependent on sales associates for obtaining information contained within the retailer's ERP system. For example, a customer shopping for a pair of jeans must interact with a sales associate that will in turn perform an inventory look up in the retailer's ERP system to determine whether a particular size and style of jeans are available in the storage area or at another retail location if the customer could not find the jeans in the display area of the store. Once the jeans sought by the customer are located in the ERP system, either at the store, at another retail location, at a warehouse facility, or at the jeans vendor's facility, the customer then further interacts with the same or another sales associate to perform the sales transaction for the jeans in the ERP system.